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I’m way too tired for having woken up just one (1) hour earlier than usual, especially given that I still got over 8.5 hours of sleep. Very eager for the sleep study for which we are currently waiting for insurance approval (after first waiting 3 months to see the specialist who could order it).

To be clear, two (2) different doctors — primary care and psychiatrist — had already tried to send me for a sleep study, but my insurance required I first see a sleep specialist, who has to order the test herself, which is where the 3 month wait came in.

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As a family doctor, I ordered a number of sleep studies for my patients (all positive) until suddenly insurance companies started requiring referrals to a sleep specialist first. It made no sense to me or to my patients.

I had my sleep study 3 weeks ago. My PCP and psychiatrist both looked at the results a few days later. The sleep specialist’s office called TODAY, a full 21 days after the study, to schedule an appointment to discuss the results. Their next available appointment is in December.

It doesn’t look like I have sleep apnea, but there was something to do with alpha wave intrusions that my psychiatrist wanted the specialist to weigh in on. So I may have actually needed a specialist after all.

But if she didn’t have to see all the straightforward sleep apnea cases that primary care used to handle just fine, maybe she’d have more reasonable availability for cases that actually do need a specialist.

I'm a retired primary care doctor. Sfter several years of ordering sleep studies (all with positive results), I suddenly was required by insurance companies, to send my patients to a sleep specialist before they could get their sleep studies. What a delay & a waste!

And then it’s up to two weeks for them to approve the sleep study once it’s finally ordered. If they approve it at all. It’s possible they’re going to make me do a home study, even though the specialist says it’s not appropriate for me and will almost certainly be inconclusive…

… and while they’ll almost certainly approve a lab study *after* the inconclusive home study, that will add further months of delay. The specialist also said my airway is “tiny,” and it’s extremely likely I have sleep apnea, so this is all just about delaying treatment for that.

Even though treating obstructive sleep apnea actually saves huge amounts of money, cause of all the stuff it’s associated with (some of which I already have, so it’s not even just hypothetical future costs). But they don’t want to pay for a CPAP now if there’s a chance I’ll die while I’m waiting.

There’s nothing currently on the table that was outside the scope of either of the doctors I’d already seen for this, and it’s very likely that I wouldn’t actually have needed to see a sleep specialist at all except that my insurance requires it. This could have been done months ago.